Category: B reviews (Page 54 of 74)

It Had To Be You by Jill Shalvis

June 18, 2013 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I received a review copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Ali Winters is not having a good day. Her boyfriend left her, everyone in town thinks she’s a thief, and now she’s about to be kicked out of her home. Her only shot at keeping a roof over her head and clearing her name is to beg for help from a police detective who’s as sexy as he is stern….After a high-profile case goes wrong, Luke Hanover returns to his hometown for some peace and quiet. Instead he finds a bombshell brunette in a heap of trouble. As he helps Ali put her world back together, the pieces of Luke’s own life finally seem to fall into place. Is this the start of a sizzling fling? Or are Luke and Ali on the brink of something big in a little town called Lucky Harbor?

What worked for me (and what didn’t: There is something to be said for a reliably good read. My reading mojo was a little down when I picked this book up but I knew that this would be a fun sexy read. Jill Shalvis books are always that for me. Some are more successful than others, but even the “average” ones are good and the comfort I can take in knowing that I’m going to have a good experience when I open a Jill Shalvis book cannot be underestimated.

Heart of Obsidian by Nalini Singh, narrated by Angela Dawe

June 16, 2013 / Kaetrin

Why I listened to it: A friend loaned me a copy to listen to while I was waiting for my print copy to arrive from the Book Depository. I felt the need to get in quick to avoid spoilers.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) A dangerous, volatile rebel, hands stained bloodred.
A woman whose very existence has been erased.
A love story so dark, it may shatter the world itself.
A deadly price that must be paid.
The day of reckoning is here.Warning: Spoilers as to heroine’s identity – if you don’t want to know look away now.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): I liked this one but I think it may have worked better for me in print. Nalini Singh has a number of writing tics – in particular, she repetition of certain words – in this book it was “obsidian” “adamantine” and “entombed”. She also phrases things a little strangely sometimes – eg “in the bed that was her own” – and both of those things are easier to skip over in print than on audio, where I cannot skim. In fact, Angela Dawe’s narration style tends to emphasise these tics if anything.

Breathe by Kirsten Ashley

June 12, 2013 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I bought this one a while back and I decided to finish the series (so far) as a little reading treat.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) In order to protect a father he does not respect, in Lady Luck, we learned that good cop Chace Keaton went bad, sacrificing his career and his future. But when the local police department’s secrets are revealed and the wife he’s forced to marry is murdered, Chace finds himself the town of Carnal’s hero. Knowing how deep in the mud he was forced to sink, Chace feels he’ll never get clean. The quiet, content future he envisioned of the love a good woman with whom he could build a family was now beyond his reach. The only thing he can do is find his wife’s murderer.But he isn’t the only one looking.While searching for new leads, he runs into Faye Goodknight, the town’s quiet, shy, pretty librarian. Chace has long since had his eye on what could possibly be the town’s last remaining virgin but he has also long since given up hope he could make her his. Faye is pure and clean and Chace refuses to dirty her with his sordid past.Pure and clean Faye may be, but when the shy librarian is forced to go head to head with the man who she’s had a crush on since he hit her hometown, Chace finds Faye is full of surprises. And he doesn’t know what to do with her.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): To be honest it took me a little while to get into this one. I felt my reading mojo was missing initially and I was getting too distracted by Twitter. But, by about 1/3 in, I felt I had hit my straps and things were looking up. By the end, I had mixed feelings. I enjoyed the romance but the subplot involving the Elite was too opaque for me and the parts involving the children mixed with so much cheese as to render me lactose intolerant.

Fire Inside by Kristen Ashley

May 31, 2013 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I received a review copy from the publisher via NetGalley. Of course, I had to read it immediately.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Lanie Heron isn’t looking for love—no surprise, considering her last serious relationship nearly got her killed. So when Lanie propositions Hop Kincaid, all she wants is one wild night with the hot-as-hell biker who patrols with the Chaos Motorcycle Club…

For Hop, Lanie has always been untouchable. She’s too polished and too classy for his tastes. But when she gives Hop the once-over with her bedroom eyes and offers him a night in paradise, he can’t say no. And he doesn’t regret it when he finds that Lanie is the best thing that’s ever happened to him—in or out of bed. Now the trick will be to convince her of that.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): Hop. Hop worked for me. Big time.

“Yeah, I liked skank,” he bit off. “Liked the taste. Wild, free, and easy. Went back for more. Repeatedly. But that was before I had my mouth between the legs of a lady. You get that, you don’t go back.”

Tack is still my favourite but Hop is next in line from the Dream Man/Chaos series so far. He was most sighworthy. As much as I enjoyed Shy and Tabby in Own The Wind, I preferred this book. I guess in part, this was because Lanie’s backstory was caught up in Motorcycle Man (Tack!). But the rest, kind of surprised me. I hadn’t seen Hop that way before. In fact, in Motorcycle Man, he is a bit of a cheating cheatypants. In this book, there is an explanation which is much better than Ross Geller‘s even if there was something a little reminiscent of it.

“Fuck me, babe, seriously?” he ground out then threw a hand toward the bed. “You knocked yourself out to make me wild. You told me your fuckin’ self. Why, Lanie? Why the fuck would you pull out all the fuckin’ stops to make a man already drunk on you drunker?”

I like that Ashley mainly writes older heroes and heroines, even though I didn’t have any trouble relating to Tabby and Shy and I don’t feel like I enjoyed Own The Wind less because they were younger. Still, I can’t deny that I do enjoy the older protagonists here – it is still quite rare in romance I think to have a hero who’s 40 and a heroine who’s 39.

Tangled by Emma Chase

May 29, 2013 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I received a review copy from the publisher.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Drew Evans is a winner. Handsome and arrogant, he makes multimillion dollar business deals and seduces New York’s most beautiful women with just a smile. He has loyal friends and an indulgent family. So why has he been shuttered in his apartment for seven days, miserable and depressed?He’ll tell you he has the flu.But we all know that’s not really true.

Katherine Brooks is brilliant, beautiful and ambitious. She refuses to let anything – or anyone – derail her path to success. When Kate is hired as the new associate at Drew’s father’s investment banking firm, every aspect of the dashing playboy’s life is thrown into a tailspin. The professional competition she brings is unnerving, his attraction to her is distracting, his failure to entice her into his bed is exasperating.

Then, just when Drew is on the cusp of having everything he wants, his overblown confidence threatens to ruin it all. Will he be able untangle his feelings of lust and tenderness, frustration and fulfillment? Will he rise to the most important challenge of his life?

Can Drew Evans win at love?

Tangled is not your mother’s romance novel. It is an outrageous, passionate, witty narrative about a man who knows a lot about women…just not as much as he thinks he knows. As he tells his story, Drew learns the one thing he never wanted in life, is the only thing he can’t live without.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): I am a hero-centric reader so stories told from the hero POV are always ones which pique my interest. I knew going in that Drew was an asshat. And he REALLY is. For most of the book (and in some areas, all of it – more on that later), he is a COMPLETE jerk. What saved him (mostly) for me was that he got his comeuppance (brought low by true lurrve (TM) don’t ya know?) and that (and he) was (often) very funny.

The Warrior’s Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold, narrated by Grover Gardner

May 27, 2013 / Kaetrin

Why I listened to it: I decided to sneak in one of my own listens between review audios. This isn’t a romance but I love the Vorkosigan world so the series is one of my rare exceptions.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Miles Vorkosigan is the leader of a fast growing mercenary force and the hero of an all-out space battle. At the end of the conflict, he heads a fleet of 19 ships and 3,000 troops. The only problem is, it is treason–as in, a hanging offense–to command a private army.

Warning: **Mild series spoilers for Shards of Honor/ Barrayar**

What worked for me (and what didn’t): When I last left Miles Vorkosigan at the end of Barrayar, he was a rambunctious 5 year old, getting into mischief even while breaking bones all the time due to his medical condition. The series picks up here, with Miles at age 17, trying out for the Barrayaran Military Academy. Aral (Miles’ dad) is now the Prime Minister, Gregor having ascended to the throne on his majority.Due to Saltoxin poisoning when he was in utero, Miles is short of stature (just under 5 feet so far) and has very brittle bones. A mishap on the obstacle course means his hopes of becoming an Officer are dashed.Miles has a huge crush on Elena Borthari, now 18, and, to try and woo her, he agrees to help her discover information about her mother. Miles, Elena and Sgt. Borthari travel to Beta Colony ostensibly to visit his grandmother, but Miles has a secret plan to stop at Escobar and see what he can find out about the mysterious woman who is the other half of Elena’s DNA.Miles has a somewhat amazing ability to get into scrapes. He jumps from frying pan to fire multiple times, each solution to problem A becoming a worse problem B. Even as I was enjoying the story immensely, part of my brain was marvelling at the clever writing which so deftly brought Miles (and myself) full circle to wrap everything up.

There is very little by way of romance in this book and, what there is, doesn’t really involve Miles. I must admit when I first listened to Barrayar, I wondered if Elena and Miles would end up together. I thought it was very clever of Ms. Bujold to dangle the possibility and then explain why it would not work, also giving Miles some heartache to temper him further as he grows to full adulthood. Of course, after listening to Barrayar, I became aware that Miles gets his HEA in A Civil Campaign (quite a few books yet to go) so I wasn’t upset as I may otherwise have been. Nevertheless, this isn’t a genre romance. It is sci-fi adventure.

Miles is young, but his disabilities mean that he has to be flexible in mind (as he cannot be in body) and creative with problem solving. He gets into messes, but he is a young man of honour and he is good hearted. Honestly, the scrapes he gets himself into here are all from the best of motives.

The story was funny, clever, emotional (I got teary at one point), exciting and smart. I like Miles and enjoy the Vorkosigan world.

Grover Gardner is such an excellent narrator. I did notice in this one that there were a few slips in terms of when sentences were supposed to end and when they actually did and one or two phrases which were intoned incorrectly. But they are small niggles. He renders Miles with deftness fitting to how he is written and the other characters are also similarly well drawn and voiced.

I find I can be more adventurous in my audiobook listening than I want to be in my reading. When the narration is this good and the story this entertaining, it is no hardship to slip away from the romance genre for a little break.

Favourite Quote:

Bed was a null G bubble warmed womb-like by infra-red. Null G sex, Miles had heard, was one of the high points of space travel. He’d never had a chance to try it personally. Ten minutes of attempting to relax in the bubble convinced him he never would either. Although, when heated the smells and stains that permeated the chamber suggested that a minimum of three people had tried it there before him recently.

Grade: B+

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